


One life, no regrets

by rhyfel



Series: Julie and the Future [3]
Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Complicated Relationships, F/M, Future Fic, It's not underage because guess what Luke grows up even if he can't grow older, Light Angst, Post-Canon, Rating for Language, from the toxic fans, implied misogyny, implied racism, mentions of toxic fans/fandoms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:42:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27258130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhyfel/pseuds/rhyfel
Summary: Julie spends years trying to have a healthy relationship with a non-ghost person like she thinks she's supposed to. It doesn't work, but Reggie's around to remind her that every relationship is different and what matters is love.
Relationships: Julie Molina/Luke Patterson
Series: Julie and the Future [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1990222
Comments: 4
Kudos: 135





	One life, no regrets

**Author's Note:**

> This is a million times less angsty than my other fic. It also is vaguely set in the same universe as that one, but years earlier.

Julie is not stupid. Her boys may share a braincell between them, but Julie has _at least_ two and she uses them. She knows why this interesting little relationship between Luke and her won’t work. She’s alive, he’s dead. She will, hopefully, continue to be alive. He will, presumably, continue to be dead. She’ll turn 40, 50, 60 and he’ll be 17, 17, _17_. There is no way this doesn’t end in tragedy and resentment and a thousand “I told you sos” from Flynn.

So Julie lets herself flirt but doesn’t go beyond that. Luke sometimes gets that stupidly cute puppy dog pout on his face when she rebuffs his more serious advances, but he respects her and won’t push if she doesn’t want him to (Reason #3 dating him would be a good idea (not that she’s got a list)).

On her twenty-first birthday, she goes to a bar for her first legal drink with Flynn, a few new friends and music contacts, and her boys. A few hours in and everyone is dancing or pairing off to go home and she’s staring at Luke from across the room, like a love-struck teenager. But she’s _not_ a teenager, and he _is_ , and she has to keep reminding herself that this won’t work when he looks at her and just seems to know what she’s thinking. The smile he’d been sharing with Reggie slides off his face and the understanding they have in that moment is like what they have when they’re writing (Reason #2 dating him would definitely work) and she knows the flirtations will stop after that night.

The aftermath of that night was messy, to say the least. The Juke community was enthusiastic, so when they saw their ship start to distance from each other, the backlash was immediate, loud, and disproportionate to the situation. The morning after their first show with their new understanding, Julie woke up to a frantic phone call from Flynn about the band breaking up. The theories online ranged from cheating, with most people blaming Julie; an unhappy relationship, with most people blaming Julie; and Luke and Alex getting together, which was somehow still spun to make Julie the bad guy keeping true love apart.

Luke spent the better part of a week writing post after post about how Julie did not cheat on him, abuse him, or force him to deny his sexuality because he and Julie weren’t even together. He spent the rest of the week responding “Fuck off” to every post he saw about it (not helpful, but Reasons #4 and #8 anyway).

The uproar dies down, life goes on, and Julie finally lets Flynn set her up on dates. Lots and lots of failed dates. It’s not that Julie is actively sabotaging them, but she’s in a world famous band with three very cute boys who she cannot introduce to her date because they’re, you know, ghosts (Reason #6 she should just be with Luke). And even if her date is somehow fine with not meeting her boys and how cagey she gets about them, she can’t invite anyone home because she lives with the aforementioned ghosts. Sure, Alex spends a lot of time out with Willie, and Reggie spends more time with her dad and brother than she does most days, but that still leaves Luke around their shared apartment almost all the time. She knows he would happily leave if she asked (Reason #7), but she also knows he’s likely to just go watch his parents and cry which adds a whole other layer of sadness to being kicked out of the apartment so his not-actually-an-ex can go on a date.

Partners come and go and one day she’s thirty-three and she’s just tired of it. Carlos has been married for years with a beautiful daughter. When they got the call that his wife was in labor, they’d dropped everything and left for the hospital (Reason #5 on the list). It hurts more than she thought it would to watch Luke play with a little baby girl with brown curls and know that she can never have that with him. She thinks, it’s now or never, and hates that lately every thought leads right back to him.

Their latest tour ends and she spends weeks moping around the apartment and snapping at the boys. Mostly Alex. Which is unfair to him, but his blissfully happy relationship with Willie feels unfair to _her_ and she’s acting like a teenager again, which is apt considering the situation. The three of them start spending more time out of the apartment, clearly trying to give her space, which just makes her more miserable about the entire thing.

Until one day Reggie shows up after everyone has left for the day, says “Alright, spill,” and it all comes out. She talks about how everyone says she can’t be with Luke, about how he’s a ghost and she’s not, he’s going to look seventeen forever and she’ll age, he can’t be a father, go places with her in public, marry her. And how lately it’s all just made her _so mad_.

“So what?” Reggie says, when she’s run out of reasons. “If you don’t like that you can’t be with him, then just be with him.”

“Reggie,” she starts, a little desperately, “it’s not that simple.”

“Julie, if there is one thing I’ve learned since dying, it’s that life isn’t simple. And neither are relationships. Lots of people start relationships with people they’ve never met, or they don’t see their partners for months at a time. Do you want to be with Luke, or do you want to be married to Luke? Are kids even important to you? And who cares if he looks seventeen forever, you’ve known us for nearly that long, and no one can see him anyway, so no one will judge you!”

Julie just sighs. It’s nothing she hasn’t told herself a million times before but she’d kind of hoped Reggie would just come in with some surprising wisdom and make everything better.

“Look, Alex and I love you both, and we just want you to be happy. If that’s not with Luke, that’s fine. But right now you aren’t with him _and_ you aren’t happy.” He reaches out and grabs her hands, holding them tight in his own. “Please Julie, you get to see him every day. You get to touch him. You love him and he loves you and that’s more than most people get. I don’t want you to choose to be unhappy with someone just because you think that’s the right thing to do.”

Julie looks at Reggie and sees the scared little kid that he was in a house with parents who fought more than they cared. She thinks about how he immediately loved her father, and then she thinks about how much her own parents loved each other. She thinks about them dancing together in the living room and how Alex gets this little smile when he talks about Willie and the way Carlos says his wife’s name and how Flynn calls her spouse her “other best friend” and she thinks about Luke. She thinks about all the places they’ve seen and everything they’ve been through together and she realizes that Reggie is right.

None of those other reasons matter, because, in the end, she loves Luke and he loves her. And that is the best reason she can think of to be with him for the rest of her life. (Reason #1)

**Author's Note:**

> Julie's list  
> 1\. I love him and he makes me happy  
> 2\. We understand each other  
> 3\. He respects me  
> 4\. He protects me  
> 5\. He loves my family  
> 6\. He loves my friends  
> 7\. He wants me to be happy even if it’s not with him  
> 8\. I can always count on him


End file.
